Justice

[Revenant]

Just to start a discussion, what are your thoughts on justice?

I see a lot of an eye for an eye when it comes to rape and murder, and while I would want that were it to happen to someone I knew, from a third person perspective, as in it's just something in the news, I feel that long term, the best thing we can do is just lock them up, and hope we gradually over generations collect enough data to prevent more murders or rapes or what have you through early prevention than just locking them up or executing them after they've already done their evil.

I see an eye for an eye as being very beneficial in times long ago when such a mechanism of desire would've prevented a person who had done you or the people you cared about great evil, and killing them would've prevented them from doing more. These days we have prisons, and while it's not a perfect system, I see it as preferable to our natural need for an eye for an eye.

So would just preventing them from committing more evil enough? Or do we need to repay them?

Thoughts?

 

[Hezam]

Eye for an eye...i believe we need to repay them.
i miss justice.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

Intellectually, I believe in rehabilitation, not retribution. I believe in giving a person the opportunity to make compensation for their crimes. I think prison should be reserved only for dangerous criminals, and the rest should do community service. Prison should be used to remove dangerous people for the safety of everyone else, but at the same time, prisoners should give something back. If they are kept busy and learn new things, some prisoners might stop being criminals, although I'm skeptical of the possibility of rehabilitating all criminals. However, they can still give something back, even it doesn't change who they are.

I don't think we're pragmatic enough about dealing with criminals. If a top heart surgeon murdered his wife in a fit of passion, he'd be locked up for life. This seems crazy to me, because far more people would die for his not being able to practise his profession. It's not easy to come up with a better solution, but we don't even try to. Laws are too rigid, which would be fine if they worked. People still get murdered, so obviously the justice system is lacking somewhere.

This is my intellectual position, but it's totally different from my emotional one. I honestly can't say how I'd react if someone hurt my family, but I find it very hard to imagine myself sitting calmly in a courtroom while the person who did it is on trial. I think "eye for an eye" is human nature.

 

[Nuala]

Justice is an illusion. It's all murder, there is no divine being or moral standing that will make murdering a murderer right in any sense. Let go of the delusion. This thread, although not directly mentioning capital punishment, is affected by such decisions concerning it. So, the only thing we can do when it comes to crime is locking the people up, putting them through therapy, and keeping a close eye on those who do not reform. There are "crimes" so heinous that it would seem as though the only option is death, but if you call for the death of another, are you any better than they are? It seems to me that they go hand in hand. Locking those people up with no hope of redemption is the only punishment that could be considered "right".

I wish the human species were above hurting one another, but look at what we do to animals, the environment, and people different from us. Hell, one can even bring up the killing of pests such as spiders. Did they wrong us? Or do we judge them initially by the way they look? I think that's the case. At any rate, so long as we believe in the illusion of "justice", crime will be forever present in human society. I suppose we cannot have good if we do not have evil to define us. Are we perhaps deluding ourselves? Is there no such thing as good and evil? The next best question would be defining order and chaos, and again, is that there? Or can we admit that there will be always evil and good present in ourselves as much as in our society, and perhaps with that acknowledgment, move beyond it?

Being wronged personally feels like crap, but we often crave revenge, another outdated concept, in answer to our feelings of pride. "How could this happen to me?", and then you set yourself on a path to the trouble that made you ask that initial question in the first place. We should be above such petty concepts as "an eye for an eye".

On a more personal note: I've been excessively wronged in the past, as have many others in my situation. It made pride in myself, my country, and community difficult, if not impossible. I've felt the pangs of hatred, cravings for revenge, and I'm proud to say that I've moved beyond it. Had I to given into it, to crave the justice of an eye for an eye, my life may have ended years ago, or be drastically different from what it is now. It is a thought I do not enjoy entertaining, so that's all there is to it. It's horrible that these concepts are rampant in humanity. No wonder we have so many issues.

 

[kawaii95]

they are no justice nowdays ><

 

[Half-n-Half]

I find myself agreeing with just about everything Tsuyoiko and Thor have said. I don't think we do enough to rehabilitate criminals or put them to use and have them do something to benefit society while they are locked up. I realize that can't replace a human life, but killing them would only waste two lives. That's a purely pragmatic perspective.

Personally, and from a more emotional perspective, like most people if someone were to hurt or murder one of my loved ones I would definitely be outraged and probably fantasize about revenge. I think discussing whether or not getting that revenge through capital punishment is morally wrong is a pretty touchy subject. Who's to say someone is "wrong" or any lesser of a person for pursuing that form of revenge? I know I wouldn't think any less of someone who did. I myself have no idea how I would react.

Also, if I may be a bit picky, I don't necessarily agree that murder rates should be a metric for the quality of a justice system. I don't doubt that there are flaws in the justice system, but I think society is the bigger culprit in murders, not the justice system.